Page 24 - Principles for Discipling Others-Student textbook

Gospel of St. John. Here the vocabulary is relatively simple and the text speaks much of Jesus’ words
and deeds. Read till you find a thought for the day and carry that thought with you throughout the day.
Remember: “The Bible will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the Bible.

Matthew 4:4 “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God.”

2. Prayer
Prayer is simply talking with God. Before sin entered into the world Adam
and Eve met and spoke with God daily. Prayer is simply speaking with your
heavenly Father. It does not have to be with flowery words or phrases, nor
does it have to be for long periods of time. It is just a time to express love
to Him, needs you might have, concerns about friends and others, etc.

3. Obedience (and/or Fellowship)
This is cultivation of our relationship with people….including friends, family, and other Christians.
“Hanging around” with other older Christians (the church) helps younger Christians to know how mature
Christians should talk and act. They have been around longer “in Christ” than we have.

4. Witnessing
This is simply sharing with others what happened when Christ came into your life …both other Christians
and other friends or family who you know.

It is possible to talk about and emphasize many other “spokes” that could be draw into the illustration of
the Christian Life Wheel. We will refer to some of these later as we discuss other aspects of
Discipleship. But we will focus on these four at first……

The Word of God: the Foundation Spoke

At this point we take some time to teach the new Christian about the Bible and how to maximize his/her
use of it. We are assuming that the new Christian will probably have a Bible of their own but may never
have opened it much to find the treasures hidden in it. There may be more information available here
that may or may not be as important at this time as other information.

Seeking the Will of God
This is desiring to know what Jesus Christ said and did and attempting to follow His example. Asking the
question about every major (and/or minor) decision one makes or opinion one expresses)…. “What
would Jesus do?” or “What would Jesus say?” is one way of expressing a Christian’s desire to do the will
of God in everything that they say or do. Christians are often in quite a dilemma as to how to find the
will of God and how to know that they are walking in it. I have found that there are 3 major factors that
surround this question:

1. Is the person a Christian or not? If a person is a Christian…a true child of God…then it must certainly
follow that God is as desirous that he/she would walk in His will as they are, and would certainly lead
them into a path pleasing to Him. Contrariwise, if a person is not a child of God, he/she is probably not
interested at all in walking in the will of God.

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